Truck Tech Update – End of Trip 2

The truck in currently at South Africa Overland Storage. They were great people to deal with. We are back on the 24th of June with a plan to drive through Botswana around the Makgadikgadi Pans, back through Kruger and then either up the bottom of Mozambique or to the Drakensburg Mountains. Ultimate Routes are doing the Botswana leg and so far, have been very good. This trip my brother and sister-in-law will be coming with us for six weeks. Starting to look forward to it. It will be fun.

We will spend a week in Johannesburg before heading off to get the finishing touches done on the truck for the trip. Not too worried, anything not done can be done when we get back.

The truck is basically sound. It handled the potholed roads of Zimbabwe without an issue. I can't say the same for us in the cab. I am still a bit shell shocked. Not keen on a return to Zimbabwe roads any time soon. The layout works ok and even with five of us in the habitat it wasn't too crowded for family. The deck adds massive space.

At the end of December 2024, I was still struggling with many issues and generally pretty dissatisfied. We returned to Cape Town in January with the whole family of five and after another 5,000km left Johannesburg in March. I am now reasonably happy with the truck. We are starting to get on top of the issues.

Recap of December issues:

1- Diesel water heater is still only running on electric however this wasn't much of an issue as we generally stayed in campsites with electricity. I replaced the motherboard in the heater and it worked perfectly for the first time ever, however the next time I went to use it the glow plug died. I have now found out from recent reviews that the Chinese diesel air and water heaters are not very reliable. I will replace the glow plug and if it continues to be unreliable replace it with a Truma unit in the future.

2- We have had the auxiliary air line fitted and it works well. Shame we didn't manage to get it done until the end of the trip as it would have saved us a lot of drama on the Skeleton Coast of Namibia, but more on that later.

3- Apple Solar semi-flexible panels were installed on the deck roof in Cape Town. These have been excellent and in fact outperforming the glass panels on the roof. I have spent days on the roof repairing the poor connections done in the original wiring of the glass roof panels, sealing water leaks and loctiting and replacing the screws that have rattled out.

4- Deck tent was made by Metalian Trailers. Great work. We still had some water leaks in the hinge area, however I am hopeful I have now got the better of them.

5- Thicker wires were run to the air conditioner by C & A Products in Cape Town. They also replaced the air conditioner with the original larger unit that I had in stock and built a cab roof top box. I still have some bracing to add to the supports as it is making me deaf with the rattling, but it does add a lot of storage space.

6- I have now had two tunes done on the ECU. One in Knysna with Alientech software which removed the speed limiter, however didn't give it much more power. Fuel economy also went down from 4.2km/l to 3.5km/l. Not sure if that was because I was going faster or the tune but either way it is pretty terrible. My Ram3500 with Cummins 6.7l gets about 5km/l and is much more powerful. The second tune was in Johannesburg by Saftrade. The Saftrade tune has made a power difference. Not dramatic but significant. I still wish I could get it on a dyno for a custom tune as when idling it seems a bit rich. I have grown accustomed to the motor and although it is nothing like the Cummins I have in Australia, it will get us around. I am hopeful that fuel efficiency will be improved with the new tune. I haven't had a chance to test it yet.

7- The gearbox is still slow and notchy but either slowly wearing in and getting better, or I am getting more used to it. Maybe a combination of both. It works.

1- We have flooded the camper multiple times now. I think I have fixed almost every water pipe in the camper at least once now and some multiple time. We now try and turn the water pump off before travelling and that has reduced the frequency of leaks. I have also replaced some of the fittings with stronger ones. Some of the locations were closed off by panels in the build so I have had to cut access holes to get at them. I think I am slowly winning.

2- We had constant heavy rain in Johannesburg before we left and despite closing the vents for the fridge, range hood extraction and microwave we still had water pouring in the side. I pulled all the appliances out and blocked the holes. Next day I made hoods for the vents and that solved the problem temporarily. I have now purchased new covers from Temu that seem more waterproof. I will fit them when I get back and we will see.

3- I still have a small leak around the ceiling hatch. I don't know for sure where it is coming from. Is it from the hatch or elsewhere in the roof and just dripping out the hatch. Not sure. Big job to remove the hatch but looks like the only way to be sure.

4- We discovered that the truck was only registered to carry three passengers when we crossed the border into Namibia. It was supposed to be registered to carry six. From then on, some of the kids had to jump through the pass-thru every time we came near a police stop. We are working through this with AC Motorhomes and the Transport Department. Hopefully AC Motorhomes can fix this for us.

5- The bathroom door fell off. Luckily it didn't break, and we have now bolted the hinges through the wall. The fold away shelf under the dinette table/bed pulled out of the wall so we could only have one on the bed after that. Johanna and Laura took it in turns to sleep on the floor. I haven't looked at this yet to see what needs to be done.

6- I am having South Africa Overland Storage fix the hole that was cut in the sub-frame to route the water pipes and cover all the pipes and wires in the mud guard area. Any tyre failure without these covers would have caused major damage.

7- The second alternator is still a work in progress. I had RD Alternators in Cape Town re-wire it and get it working as Motolek Stikland had no idea about how to wire an external regulator. Unfortunately, the mount by Motolek is also not quite right and the belt slippage melted the belt and it broke on the first drive. I have now replaced the belt however don't trust it. I would like to see if I can put a longer belt on that goes around the existing tensioner. Job for later.